Purple and Green
by erbkaiser
Summary: A brief vignette about Hermione Granger's first trip to Diagon Alley, and what was learnt that day.


Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine, it's owned by JK Rowling c.s..

**Purple and Green**

Hermione Granger was not your average eleven-and-one-month years old little girl. She was extremely smart, easily in the top 1 percentile. She was also precocious and extremely interested in everything around her.  
And she was a witch, as she had learned the week previous when a Professor Babbling of Hogwarts had come to the Granger household, and had informed the little girl and her parents that the rather odd occurrences of telekinesis and other mysterious events were the result of something called _accidental magic_.  
It took some time to convince the dentist parents that magic was real, but eventually they were convinced and had agreed to send Hermione to Hogwarts, rather than the prestigious lady's preparatory school she had been signed up for previously.

Among the deluge of information the Granger household had received on the Wizarding world was a guide to the Magical shopping area, known as 'Diagon Alley'. And so, one day in October that 1990 Hermione Granger was pulling her parents by the hand as they walked down Charing Cross Road.

'It _must_ be around here somewhere, I am simply _certain_ of it. Are you absolutely _sure_ we did not pass it by in the car?' she demanded of her father.

'Yes pumpkin, I am sure. Just keep looking, we'll find it.'

Just then Hermione stopped and let out a gasp.

'Mother, father, we're here!' she began dragging the adult Grangers excitedly at a broken-down old storefront.

'Wookie bear, that is just an abandoned store,' began her mother. But then Hermione stepped across the threshold and disappeared briefly, before Mr and Mrs Granger were pulled across as well.

They found themselves in a run-down public locale that looked like it had been lifted straight out of a previous century and dropped in modern-day London. The patrons were wearing strange clothes, some wearing robes, others in costumes ranging from top hat and waistcoat to a young man who was wearing bright pink pyjamas, flip-flops, and a bowler hat.  
The pub was dark and shabby, lit not by light bulbs but by gas lights.

'Looking fer th'Alley, young miss?' asked the bartender, an old and bald man with a hunched back. He was wearing dark robes.

'Yes sir, Diagon Alley. The Professor said it was through your establishment, is that really true? I looked at a map and could not find the Alley anywhere. Is this really a Wizard pub? It is so exciting, you see –' Hermione rattled off.

'Righ' this way then miss, missus, an' sir,' the barman said, stepping away from the counter and going out the back door. The Grangers followed him into a back courtyard that was closed off by a large brick wall at the other end.

The barman took out a crooked wand, and tapped a certain series of bricks in an anti-clockwise order. The bricks began to move, and an arched doorway appeared.

'Diagon Alley, enjoy yer stay,' the barman said, walking back inside the pub.

Hermione and her parents saw a curving alley filled with oddly dressed people, and strange stores lining both sides. As they stepped through, they saw that the stores advertised matters like '_Potions ingredients, freshly pickled newts on sale today only!_', '_Cauldrons, buy three get one half off!_', and '_Brooms! The new Nimbus 2000 coming soon!_'.

'_Yes_,' thought Mr Granger, '_this is a Wizarding world indeed._'

Over the next two hours the Grangers went from strange store to stranger store, buying all the equipment Hermione's letter said she needed. By promising her she could buy four extra books, they even managed to get her out of the '_Flourish & Blotts_' store within a record-breaking short period of 'only' forty-five minutes.

The wand salesman, Ollivander, thoroughly creeped them out, but after a few tries Hermione left with her new wand:

'Vine wood, with a dragon hearstring core. A stubborn wand, but suited for powerful spells.'

Ollivander was one of the few persons dressed like a normal person in Mr Granger's opinion, it was just unfortunate that his wide pale eyes and slight sheen made the man wearing these clothes look rather inhuman.

After an exhausting few hours, the Granger parents took an excited but tired eleven-and-one-month years old witch home. Hermione was immediately disappearing into one of her books on arriving back home, and Mr Granger picked up one of her 'extra' books to see what the girl had brought home.  
'_The Biology of Magic_,' was the title. Mr Granger browsed through it, until he reached an interesting section:

'_Recent Muggleborn-led studies have indicated that Magic may be closely tied to an anomaly in chromosome 7. While not all Muggles with tritanopia or tritanomaly are Muggleborn wizards or witches, all Wizards and Witches tested in this study have shown the same defect._  
_In short, Magic has a direct genetic origin, and one of the genes appears to be linked to colour blindness._'

Mister Granger looked at his Pumpkin curled up on the sofa, wearing her pretty green shirt and purple trousers, and could not resist the laughter that bubbled up.

* * *

A/N: a little bit of non-canon nonsense.

Doesn't this fit some of the weird clothes Wizards are wearing? It doesn't explain the absurd fashion sense, but that's probably the result of inbreeding *grin*

I'll update B&C next monday probably. Thanks for reading!

A/N 2: Format edited 17-06. I've been told I need to use more blank lines to make it easier to read :)


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